Sunday, November 16, 2014

“Make in India” is an international marketing campaigning
slogan coined by the Prime Minister of India.
With the aim to facilitate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill
development and protect intellectual property, the campaign aims to build a
best in class infrastructure to make india a global manufacturing hub.

Post release, this
campaign has been hitting social media circles popularity charts with different
discussions centered around “make in india” campaign. A quick search in social
media websites for “make in india” will reveal the popularity of this campaign.
When I did a quick search in twitter I got around 12627 records after scanning
around 10,000 tweets using NodeXL tool.
Below figures are Network graphs of twitter search for string "Make in
India" and two tweets are highlighted.

But the biggest challenges that manufacturing industry faces
today in India is skill development. The days of cheap Chinese goods are just
beginning. Most Chinese products are legally or illegally entering Indian
market and giving tough completion to the Indian producers. Though some have
issues with quality, the Chinese entrepreneurs are improving. Xiaomi is a best
example of a Chinese product that has founds it foothold in Indian market
without any brick and motor store. Go to any corner of Indian market in rural
or urban area, you will find retailers talking about Chinese goods.

In the backdrop of such heavy competition, it is important
that Indian manufacturing sector works on improving the skills of manpower to
meet the competitive forces of free economic market. As per a government
estimate, Manufacturing has the potential to add 9 crore jobs in the next ten
years. However this can only be attained if India focuses on skill improvement
and ease of doing business.

Initiatives must be taken for skill development to warrant
that skilled manpower is available for manufacturing. The manufacturing sector
cannot develop on its own without skilled labor force. The creation of suitable
skill would absolutely set rural immigrants and the urban poor on a track
towards comprehensive development. This would be a vibrant step for improving
manufacturing.

Skill growth and charting of skills to trades is an significant
striving that must be followed. Some associations such as Confederation of
Indian Industry (CII) has taken many initiatives in this area and trained many
workers with specific skills across sectors by embracing Industrial Training
Institutes (ITIs) and developing skill repositories. Besides, the New Ministry
for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has initiated the process of
revising the National Policy on Skill Development. Some of the achievable
Targets for the manufacturing sector highlighted by the government through
national manufacturing policy are as follows:

1.An surge in manufacturing sector progress to
12-14% per annum over the medium term.

2.An surge in the stake of manufacturing in the
country’s Gross Domestic Product from 16% to 25% by 2022.

6.Enhancing the worldwide attractiveness of the
Indian manufacturing sector.

7.Ensuring sustainability of development, predominantly
with regard to nationwide manufacturing.

Despite having a promising demographic contour, labor and
skill scarcity continues to be one of the key worries for the Indian industry. Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) assessments state that only
about 2% of India's labor force has undertaken some kind of job-related
training, signifying a enormous demand-supply gap of skilled workforce. Besides
20% of Indian youth are presently jobless,
signifying the disheartened state of the labor market.

Till now the government was worried about the rich and poor
gap. But If skill building is not addressed then the gap between skilled and non-skilled
will increase leading to more social problems. Skill development initiatives
that are need of the hour (also stated in the National Skill Development
Policy, released in 2009) can be given as follows:

1.Growing ability and proficiency of present
Education/Training system to ensure rightful admission to all.

As new initiatives are being launched and new terms such as First
develop india (FDI) are being developed, the government has its task clear that
without the support of citizens nothing can be successful. Once Empowered and
skilled citizen gets a job, it will increase consumption demand thereby
indirectly help other industries. Hence
there is a huge opportunity in making in India for corporates. But continuously
upgrade of skills is important to keep the momentum of the growth and at the
same time provide a stable and efficient platform for “Make in india”.